New car, same colours for Silvio Strauch
Silvio Strauch showed up at The Main Event with a new Top Methanol dragster. The Engine Ghost Racing Team was plagued by severe tyre shakes for quite a few races with the wing breaking tyre shake at the 2024 European Finals as a low point. Time for some changes, although with racing in the same colours as before, not everyone will have taken notice of that during the opening round of the FIA European Championship at Santa Pod.
It was one of the best kept secrets and only a few insiders knew it, as Silvio Strauch didn’t want any publications before the car was in the team’s own racing livery. Thus it was a surprise for attentive spectators when the car rolled out of the trailer at Santa Pod Raceway. But many others will not even have seen the difference, as the design is exactly the same as it was on the ‘old’ car. But colours do not make a driver go quicker and faster, but a new chassis does.
“The chassis was getting too old. We had so many horrible tyre shakes the last two seasons and those tyre shakes didn’t make it any better for the chassis and caused damage to other parts as well. We tried so many different set-ups, but it was impossible to solve the tyre shake problems anymore. The tyre shake that damaged the rear wing at last year’s European Finals was the last straw. We really feel sorry as it was a car with a long and successful history, many years driven by the legendary Peter Schӧfer and his team,” said Strauch about the reason for the change.
“We bought the car from a racer in the States. The body is in one piece and the front wing is different from what we had, that is where most people will see that it is another car. All other components, like engine, gearbox etc. are from the ‘old’ car. So it was a lot of work to transfer everything from the old to the new chassis. We didn’t even had the time and opportunity to start the engine. We had to do that at Santa Pod, the day before qualifying. We would have loved to be at the test day before The Main Event to make some test passes, but we have a business to run, other obligations and a family, so it was not possible to travel two days earlier,” said Strauch.
With all this in mind and that the first round in qualifying was also the very first run of the new combination, it will not be a surprise that some small problems showed up. But in the third qualifying attempt and his first full pass, Strauch recorded a great 5.64 seconds. On the fourth and final qualifying run the wheelie bar setting was too high, with a huge wheelie as a result. Thanks to the quick reaction of the driver, the car didn’t suffer any damage.
In the first round of eliminations, Strauch had a little tyre shake, otherwise a win would have been possible. But with a 5.81-second ET the Engine Ghost Racing Team was still happy. “We gained a lot of data and went home without any major damage. Now we have the time to make some adjustments. To feel comfortable in the car, the pedals must be a bit further away to the front of the car. That is something you can only feel when you race the car,” said Strauch.
The next stop for Strauch and his Engine Ghost Racing Team will be the Summit Racing Equipment Internationals, round two of the FIA European Championship at Tierp Arena.
Text and photos: Remco Scheelings
